Picking Up the Pieces
by queenofowls
Summary: [Set before His Love, the Phoenix.] Byleth has awakened to a changed Garreg Mach. There are no students in the halls, no assigned mission to be done for the month from Rhea, and most distinctly, the room beside Byleth's is full of dust, silence and sorrow. Dedue is dead, and she must pick up the pieces of her students and herself. [f!Byleth/Dedue]


She stares at the ceiling of her old room in Garreg Mach's dormitory, Dimitri's voice echoing in her head.

_"You know... there's no telling where life will take us after we leave here. If only we could find a way to come together again, just like this..."_

And from behind him, _he_ uttered the words that would haunt her. Break her. Leave her staring listlessly at the ceiling each night after washing the blood and filth of battle from her skin, the emptiness of the room beside hers so loud with his absence.

_"A fine notion, Your Highness. Perhaps five years from now?"_

Byleth opens the doors to her room to see the haunting, silent glow of the moon, hovering over her as though she is the only person alive.

Dedue promised her that he would meet them in five years. Even when her own reply was uncertain... even when Dimitri's reply was uncertain, he never wavered. He was going to be there, no matter what.

So why... why was it that she has returned after five years, that they had _all_ returned, but...

"But not you." She whispers the words towards the soft glow of the moon. She once danced with Dedue under this moon. She kissed him, once, and then unkissed him, because she did not want to ruin his future. A small part of her, perhaps, had done it with the knowledge... with the hope that she would have forever to do so.

And then, before the battle for Garreg Mach... he held her in his arms, where his lips told her he loved her without words. She shivers at the memory of his breath against her neck, hugging herself.

Five years had passed since that moment.

Four since he had died.

Days since she awoke to this strange, cruel world without him.

Byleth knows that she has greater concerns than lost love. She sees the crumpled look on Ashe's face whenever mention is made of the man of Duscur and envies it. Ashe, she reasons, can cry if he wishes to, but as for her... Whenever she sees Annette and Mercedes trying their best to smile and bring light and color to Garreg Mach's crumbling walls, she knows the truth. Byleth has no choice but to become The Professor again, to lead them with her most stoic face forward. She has never found it easy to express her emotions, but she is uncertain she would ever find the words needed to express the way she feels when she sees Dimitri staring aimlessly in the cathedral.

She has tried to get through to him, but he is broken, wordlessly so, and she does not have the pieces necessary to put him back together again.

Byleth is just one person and Dedue was just one man.

But he is the only one she has ever wanted, and everything is all wrong.

She touches the Duscur earring in her pocket, its familiar fan shape heavy against her fingers. Byleth knows who it belongs to, that she was supposed to return it to him when she found it in her roamings of the monastery grounds, but she had never quite found the time to do so. Five years, she lay sleeping with a piece of him preserved in her pocket, and now...

Now it is all she has left of him.

Byleth cups the earring in her hands and presses them to her chest, like a prayer.

There is no one to hear her here.

"Dedue..." She whispers his name, the weighty syllables a curse on her lungs. _You are a fool._ But even in her heart, she cannot bring herself to curse him. Not really. Instead, she says the words she never got to tell him to the waiting moon. "I love you," Byleth says softly under its soft glow, "and I will use all of my strength to protect all that you once held dear."

_Yes_... even Dimitri, who could not even find the strength to protect himself. She would protect him, too, and the future that he wished for.

She's tempted to hook the earring in her ear in remembrance, but she does not. Not only is she not a woman of sentiment, Byleth is certain that she will never be able to bear its weight.

Byleth finds herself walking towards the cemetery. There is an unmarked grave there, Dedue's name only partially inscribed in a humble wooden plaque slung over the grave stone. There is no stonemason to complete the stone as one had for her father.

A voice murmurs quietly in the space, surprising her. Byleth stops, listens. The sound forces her to bury the expression on her face. She does not know what it looked like before but she knows what her students need, even if they are too big to be her students anymore.

Perhaps she is becoming like Dimitri was once, pretending to be fine when she could not be further from the truth. Will she break, too? What is the point where she will no longer be able to bear existence? How close is she to it?

"Dedue... I'm sorry for blaming you for the tragedy. I told you to your face..." Ingrid's voice chokes off painfully. "I told you that I once thought your people cruel and heartless, deserving of the tragedy that befell them. But... if you could see Dimitri..." Ingrid's pause lets an image appear in Byleth's own mind. Dimitri, slaughtering with abandon, rage distorting his once handsome features, the unwashed hair hanging in his blood spattered face. "Now I know that monsters have many faces, and sometimes they are what we become when we have no other choice." She squeezes her fists tightly together and forces herself to stand on trembling knees. "I will become a knight, and when I do, I will defend the weak, no matter what face they wear. As I should've defended you."

It's a private apology, but... Byleth listens to it anyway. The dead, after all, cannot accept her apologies. It is... it is up to her to hear Ingrid's words and accept them. She steps down the stairs, alerting Ingrid to her presence.

"Professor...! Oh, I-" She stands quickly, her eyes and nose a telltale pinkish-red. "It's cold tonight. Are you... alright out here? You ought to wear something warmer if you're going to be out any longer." Byleth nods, part in answer, part in acknowledgement. She grips the earring in her pocket for strength. "Are you here to... to speak to him, too?" Byleth doesn't answer, largely because there is nothing to say, not really. Ingrid stands from her kneeling position in front of the grave, a bundle of flowers left behind. "I cleaned it last night. I know we don't know where... where his body is, but I thought it should be respected, in spirit."

_Thank you_, Byleth's heart whispers. "That's kind of you," she says aloud, instead. Ingrid tries to smile and only partially manages.

"You know, professor... I said some... horrible things to him, once. Blamed him for Glenn." She stares up at the moon, the wind rustling through the hair framing her face. "He just accepted it. Protected me in battle anyway, like I... like I'd never spat in his face."

"That's the kind of man he was," she replies listlessly. Because he _was_ that kind of man, as much as she hates to acknowledge it. If he weren't, he'd be beside her.

But if he weren't... he'd be a stranger. He wouldn't be the man she loved so much. Loves so much.

Her heart does not yet know that he is dead.

"He was just a child too, you know. When the Tragedy happened. We all were. But..." She trails off, lips sloped into a frown. "But he lost more than any of us."

Byleth nods. As is, Duscur is but sand in the wind, and Dedue was once... a shell on the shore. Solid, yet delicate, and all too easily crushed under the feet of fate. She wonders idly, a chilling thought piercing her in the chest.

_...What was he thinking as he lay dying? Did he think of her? Did he call for her as she slept in the dust of the earth?_

"Ingrid, may I ask you a question? A personal one."

Ingrid looks at her in surprise. "If... if I am able to assist, then of course, professor, I will hear you out." Byleth drags her gaze from the moon to Ingrid's face.

"When you lost Glenn, did you love him?" _And if so, how did you cope after?_ She cannot bring herself to ask the latter half of the question. It is too personal, and her feelings too private, too personal, too painful to admit in the evening chill. She must ease her way into this.

"Love him?" Ingrid echoes Byleth thoughtfully. "You know... had you asked me this five years ago, I would've said yes, without a doubt. But now... I think I always thought of Glenn as a comfort. A future. Did I love him? Maybe. I was a kid, so I had as much love a any child could. But... what I lost when he died was stability. He was always there at my side. When I looked at him... I knew what my future was. What _our_ future was supposed to be. I... I built my life around that expectation."

Byleth thinks of how often she sent Dedue into battle, knowing that he would destroy anything in his path and she... she can imagine. No matter what she asked of him, he paid it in blood in behalf of the prince in a way that almost no other soldier could, bar, perhaps, Felix or Dimitri himself. Even so... the army needs Dedue amongst their ranks for his skill alone, maybe even more than her heart does.

She cannot imagine that it is more than her heart does.

"Losing Glenn hurt, professor. House Galatea had nothing, and then we had something, and then," she snaps her fingers, the sound crystal clear in the silence of the cemetery ground. "Then we had nothing again. And Duscur was to blame." Ingrid laughs bitterly. "How easy it was to believe that. It's hard to hate a ghost, Professor. But Dedue... he wasn't a ghost. In my stupid, narrow-minded eyes, _he_ was Duscur, and I..." She shakes her head, a sob cutting her off as she drops her hands into her face.

Byleth touches Ingrid's head lightly. "Regrets will get you nowhere," she says staunchly in spite of a heart full of unvoiced ones, "If you have them, use them as fuel to do better next time. Dimitri needs us now." Ingrid sniffs loudly, unstoppable tears still dripping down her face in the silence.

"I'm... I'm _trying_. But Professor, it's just so hard. Dimitri is lost. We _all_ are." Her voice drops to a whisper. "I don't know how to keep fighting anymore."

Byleth opens her mouth, then closes it.

Then, she steels herself and takes her own advice, forcing herself to be the woman her student needs. "Dimitri is lost and perhaps we can lead him out of the darkness together. But you must be resolved not to be lost in to the darkness yourself, Ingrid." She tilts the corners of her mouth into a smile. "Just promise yourself, and each of us will have to do our best. Understood?"

Lips quivering, face wet with tears and mucus, Ingrid's head bobs as she tries to control her tears. "I... I do." She falls silent for a moment, scrubbing at her already raw, red eyes with gloved hands. "Professor? If you don't mind my asking... what brought you here?"

Byleth shakes her head, already prepared to lie. _Nothing, really._ But to her surprise, the truth is ready and waiting. "There... there are also things that I wish I had said to Dedue," she confesses, her face carefully neutral all the while. She murmurs, eying the grave with an understated stare. "I cannot help but feel that his presence is sorely lacking in the monastery."

Ingrid lets out a painful laugh. "I'm not one for sweets, but I... I would do anything to taste his Sweet Bun Trio." She sobers, her voice faint. "I would do anything to tell him how sorry I am."

Byleth almost nods with her.

As professor, she should've taught him to value his life more. In this, too, she has failed him.

"As would I, Ingrid," Byleth replies. Ingrid turns her head to look at her curiously, wondering what the professor would apologize to Dedue for-but to her surprise, Byleth's figure is already retreating up the stairs.

* * *

**Oof, this one made me cry...**

**Can I just say a quiet thank you to those of you who leave reviews? I'm always excited to read how you guys will react and it makes me really happy to know that I'm not rowing this boat alone.**

**Hyphen, Caffeinatedraindrop, Millenial28, Sparks101, Bryuu... thank you guys so much for your vocal, regular support. It's really encouraging to read your comments and I always look forward to them.**

**Until the next one! o7**


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